passengers

THE PASSENGERS

While the majority of the people on board were Chinese, the 227 passengers and 12 crew members came from 14 different countries: Canada, the U.S., France, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, the Netherlands, India, Ukraine, Russia, Taiwan and Indonesia.

Among the passengers were 19 artists, returning from a calligraphy and painting exhibition in Malaysia, some of whom are regarded as major figures in the Chinese art scene. The group included: Meng Gaosheng, 63, a famed calligrapher Painter, Wang Linshi, Liu Rusheng, the director of Nanjing Painting and Calligraphy Academy, renowned for his portraitures as well as his paintings of birds and flowers.

Canadian citizens Muktesh Mukherjee, and Xiaomo Bai were returning home to Beijing. After earning a post-graduate degree at McGill, Muktesh joined U.S.-based Xcoal Energy, which ships coal around the world. The flight manifest also included 20 employees of Freescale Semiconductor, which produces microchips for a variety of applications, including the military.

The youngest passenger was 2 year old Wang Moheng, one of three generations of a Chinese family; Wang Rui, an executive at the Boston Consulting Group, his wife Jiao Weiwei, their son and Jiao’s parents, Jiao Wenxue and mother Dai Shuling. All were returning from a vacation in Sabah in eastern Malaysia.

Ju Kun was a stuntman, trained in Kung Fu, on his way to visit his children in Beijing before starting work on Marco Polo, a new NetFlix series being shot in Malaysia…